The Perfection Of The Legal System Of Electronic Commerce Contract

With the application of electronic commerce injecting new vitality to global trade and economic activities, the traditional law could not deal perfectly with the changes caused by technological progress gradually and new legal issues are rising continuously. Countries around the world are all actively trying to explore legislation of electronic commerce contract when confronted with these issues. Despite the fact that the legal status of electronic contract is first made clear in new Contract Law which is enacted by China in March,1999, the provisions on electronic contract are only a rough outline and hard to be put into operation. A lot of matters remain in the field of electronic contract as a consequence.This paper does a lot of study on the conclusion, change, and termination of electronic contract as well as on the time and place of the contract establishment.China’s electronic commerce contract shares some basic characteristics and substance with traditional contract. Electronic commerce contract contains similar information with traditional contract, besides, they show same legal relationship and legal meanings. What’s more, electronic commerce contract and traditional contract have obvious differences in the legal effect, contract procedures, and contract format and terms, and contract alteration and cancellation; besides, the main trading body of electronic commerce contract has some traits as virtualization and universality. Compared with traditional contract, electronic commerce contract is so much different in the way of effect, time, location, and carrier and so forth.After the comparison of electronic commerce contract and traditional contract, problems still exist in electronic commerce contract. As a matter of fact, we still have questions in whether the computer can be the contract subject, whether electronic offer can be withdraw, time and place of the establishment of the contract, the written form of the contract, the digital signature and whether electronic files can be legal prove and other aspects as well.After research and analysis on every aspect of electronic commerce contract mentioned above, we should do something on the perfection of China’s legal system of electronic commerce contract. We should perfect the legal effect of electronic contract, contract procedures, contract format and terms, signature and seal and other aspects, electronic contract has changed the traditional way of information transmission and exchange, challenged legal system which applies well to traditional’paper trade’, gave rise to vacancies in present legal mechanisms when it comes to the establishment and security of electronic contract and other things like that. It has become a major problem in the legislation of China’s electronic commerce as to how to ensure the perfection and reliability of the effectiveness of electronic contract, and this give rise to new law issues. The study and analysis of these issues will help us to recognize and understand the characteristics of electronic contract, help to guide us using electronic contract correctly in electronic transactions and solve problems occurred within the framework of traditional contract law, and provide the necessary legal guidance for electronic transactions.